Sometimes It's Nice to Have Help
by x3aless
Summary: Collection of short pieces. No specific category or genre, so who knows what may happen!
1. Real

DISCLAIMER: In some far off parallel universe, I own everything! Not in this one though.

**Real**

* * *

She watched through the window as the truck drove up the driveway, briefly splashing her with its headlights, the sound of the tires growling softly through the gravel as it came to a stop.

It was 4:49 am and he had been gone for almost five hours. This was the third night he had snuck out. He thought no one knew.

The engine died and the door opened and quietly slammed; a moment later, the sound of the front door opening. Inside, the house was dark, save for the soft luminance of moonlight seeping through the window.

This time she didn't slip back into the shadows.

"John… can we talk?" Her voice was mild, soft but suggestive.

He stopped midway through closing the door and let out a frustrated sigh. He closed the door and turned to her.

"What is it?" He was annoyed. He was always annoyed. She had trouble understanding why.

"You were with Riley again."

"Why do you care?" He immediately took on a defensive posture, challenging her.

"I care." It was matter-of-fact. It was true. He didn't think so.

"Right," he snorted sardonically, shaking his head and crossing his arms. They stared at each other in silence.

"Do you love Riley?"

He was taken aback. "That's none of your business." He scolded. He was angry now.

"I want to know." Her timid voice had become lost in the sea of his volatile temperament.

"Why? Why do you want to know?" He seethed.

Her eyes glanced downwards. She wanted to tell him, but she didn't know how. The moonlight bathed her in a milky soft glow, highlighting her smooth skin as dark auburn hair draped down and framed her face. She was beautiful. He'd had enough and began to stomp off.

"John?" She called out to him as he had started up the stairs. He stopped but didn't look back.

"Do you love _me_?"

He turned around. There was an expression on his face that she couldn't place. She had said the wrong thing. Lately, everything she said to him was the wrong thing. She didn't know how to tell him.

"What?" He asked horrified, incredulous that she had asked such an audacious question, hurt.

"Do you love me?" Her face remained as stoic as ever.

Finally shaking himself loose from his paralysis, he marched right up to her.

"Why would you even ask that? What does it even matter to you?" She noticed that he hadn't answered any of her questions.

"Do you even know what love means?" He asked angrily.

"Yes, I do." She tilted her head slightly, looking at him as if willing him to understand what she so desperately wanted him to know.

The anger seemed to leave him fleetingly as he considered the implications of what she said before rushing back in even greater force.

"No, you don't." His voice was a whispered growl dripping with animosity.

"You don't know what love is. You don't know what it means to _care _about someone, or to be _devoted _to someone, and _not _because it's your mission." The anger in his face faded away only slightly, his eyes held a hidden longing that wistfully glared back at her. "You're… programmed. You don't know love… It's not real..." He trailed off with an almost inaudible sigh. She heard it.

Their eyes remained locked together for what seemed an eternity. Finally, he retreated back up the stairs and she heard his bedroom door close.

She turned back towards the window. The stillness of the night was met with a genuine sadness that remained locked behind two expressionless brown eyes.

"It's real to me." It was barely a whisper.

* * *


	2. Ficus benjamina

**  
Ficus _benjamina_**

A/N: I attemted to do a drabble. It didn't work. Anyways, here's the result.

* * *

Ficus _benjamina_ - Also known as a Weeping Fig, or Benjamin's Fig: It sits in a terracotta pot in the corner of the living room. She can see every detail, down to the tiny veins that run along the glossy surface of the leaves. Dapples of bright green are meticulously captured by golden brown eyes.

She hears footsteps, coming down the stairs. She doesn't need to turn around to see who it is; she already knows. She does so anyways.

They lock eyes for a moment. They seem to do that a lot these days. His identity is confirmed. The termination directive appears. She ignores it. They break eye contact.

He heads into the kitchen. She returns her gaze back to the plant.

Dapples of bright green are meticulously captured by golden brown eyes. She can see every detail, down to the tiny veins that run along the glossy surface of the leaves.

She wants to follow him, but he doesn't want her to.

His voice calls out, announcing his departure. A voice match is identified. The termination directive appears. She ignores it. Perhaps it's best she doesn't follow. She does so anyways.

* * *


	3. Complicated

DISCLAIMER: I own the PC that this was written on. I don't own anything TSCC, though . . . and that makes me sad, sometimes.

**Complicated**

* * *

Connor was the reason SKYNET wasn't winning. Connor was the reason their campaign was so successful. What more could he say? Derek was never a man of rhetoric. He was a soldier. Connor was their leader; their General. It was not complicated. It didn't need to be.

It was surprisingly cool for a Los Angeles late-summer evening. Derek leaned against the workbench inside the shed, a bottle of Budweiser cradled in his left hand. He'd celebrated his General's 30th with him. Connor had gotten drunk as a skunk. A slight breeze slithered in through the partly open door. It was not complicated. It didn't need to be.

Twilight leaked in from the outside. He drew in and savored a drink from the bottle. It was still cool and crisp, the carbonation biting at the insides of his mouth. They were fighting a war. It was a war of hope and survival. The machines hunted them. They fought the machines. It was not complicated. It didn't need to be.

But this . . . this was different. This was complicated. John wasn't his general. He wasn't a soldier. Not yet. But he wasn't just a kid either. Already, he had that gut instinct that made him near legend in the future. Already he had that ability to make people listen to him and even follow him. But he was also insecure . . . unsure, and inexperienced. He was not there yet. This was complicated.

He wasn't a boy, but he wasn't a man. So what was he? Morality had a larger role in this world. All John saw were the moral implications of a decision. He couldn't see beyond that. He wasn't a soldier yet. He didn't understand war. He understood fighting, but not war. He couldn't see the long term consequences of a decision. He struggled to keep his morality, even if it blinded him to the reality of a savage world. This . . . this was complicated.

Then there was the machine. He knew the machine could act human, more so than any other machine he had seen. That was the thing, though. The machine didn't act human. But it didn't act like a machine either. It wasn't right.

There were times where the only sign that John Connor and General Connor was the same person, was the machine. Connor used machines. Derek could understand that. This John trusted, stood up for, and defended the machine. That was incomprehensible to Derek. It wasn't right. What if he was being changed, manipulated even?

He drew in a breath followed by another drink. But what if this was the way it had already happened? If Derek tried to intervene, would it help or just make things worse? Maybe it was these experiences which had allowed Connor to think like his enemy, to know how to not only fight them, but to beat them. This was complicated. And Derek didn't understand complicated.


	4. Diamonds are A Girl's Best Friend

**Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend**

DISCLAIMER: I live on Earth. If you're reading this, then I assume you do as well, though I do not discriminate.

* * *

She's . . . awake? She doesn't know where she is. It's confusing . . . unfamiliar. The room is dark, but her eyes are adjusted. _"How long have I been here?'_ She inwardly questions, but there is no answer. She unknowingly makes her way over to a small dresser with a lamp on the far end. It is a strange object to her, and yet she knows perfectly what it is and what it does. She reaches over and pulls a small chain, igniting a soft glow to emanate throughout the room. It all feels so . . . unreal. Something grabs her attention, as if calling out to her, tiny phantom strings pulling at her mind, forcing her to gravitate towards it.

It's a small box, carved out of an elegant wood. The polished surface is like a dark auburn glass as the light dances across its exterior. She softly runs her fingertips over the top of it, brushing over the roughly engraved floral pattern adorning the lid before gently lifting it open. A small, almost inaudible gasp escapes her lips, her eyes widening ever so slightly. What she sees instantly takes her breath away.

The inside is lined with a soft, fabric-like material, a small detail that is barely paid any attention to as she focuses almost immediately on the single item in the box. It's a . . . a stone . . . a glass stone, of some kind. It looks like . . . she exhales a breath . . . it's beautiful. She picks it up between her thumb and forefinger and examines it with a careful, delicate admiration, as if the wrong look would shatter it, sending it crumbling away. The soft light reflects off of it like a star in the night sky.

She's heard about stars before, from . . . from somewhere. She has never seen the clear night sky, let alone seen a star before; yet here she is, holding one in her very own hand. That's the only thing it could be - a star, plucked right out of the sky just for her.

Except that, it isn't hers. Realization becomes resignation. Whom it belongs to, she doesn't know. Tenderly, almost longingly, she places it back into the box, right where she found it; every movement a refusal on her part to test the item's possibly hidden fragility. _'Diamonds are a girl's best friend,'_ the whisper is haunting, fleeting . . . and then it's gone.

Closing the lid, her focus shifts to the dresser, her hand leaving the box and gliding over the top of it in a continuous motion. It is also made of wood; not as elegant as the little box, but still in better condition than anything she's . . . used to seeing? What _is_ she used to seeing? Everything seems so foreign, so . . . far away, as if she were here but . . . not really here.

_'Am I dreaming?'_ She wonders. Is that what this is, a dream? No, it couldn't be. It seems too real to be a dream, but it just doesn't feel real enough to be . . . real. There's an intense loneliness in this place, wherever it is. It fills the room, pressing down on her, threatening to crush her in some sort of serene-like solitude. She's alone, and her memory . . . she realizes she can't remember anything. No. It isn't that she can't remember . . . there's nothing there. Empty. No memories, just . . . this place.

The small table lamp continues to pour out its soft, ethereal glow throughout the room and it only adds to the unnaturalness of it all, making it seem even more like a dream. On the wall over the center of the dresser is a large mirror. She leans in and looks over her reflection. The girl staring back at her seems so unfamiliar. It's her, but . . . not her. The hair is too orderly, too sculptured. The face is too clean. It looks like a mask, it is so immaculate. She slowly reaches up with her right hand and lays it against her cheek. The sensation is there, but it feels . . . off. Numb, somehow. Not real.

_'What's happening to me?' _A silent panic fills her as she shuts her eyes and quickly turns away from the mirror, unable to look at herself anymore. She needs to calm down. Breathe. _'Come on . . . deep breaths . . . deep breaths, Allison.'_ Her eyes instantly shoot open. Allison. Her name is Allison.

* * *

Author's Notes:

The premise here is that the "Allison glitch" seen in _Allison From Palmdale _did not occur for the first time in that episode, nor does it have any sense of continuity; it sort of resets each time. The setting takes place sometime between _Automatic For the People_ and _Allison From Palmdale_.

Thanks for the reviews, everyone. I appreciate the compliments and criticisms alike. Please, feel free to point out what you like and don't like equally. Thanks again.


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